Shades of Grey
by A.Deep.Life
Summary: She already has everything else – an unscarred past, a career that doesn't consume her life, a living and breathing mother. She can't have him too.


**So for this to seem in-character, I'm pretty sure you have to assume that Beckett and Josh did not start dating until after Castle got back from the Hamptons. Which could technically be possible I hope, given that we don't first see Josh until Episode 5 of this season. **

**Time: shortly after the start of Season 3. Setting: the launch party for Naked Heat that we didn't get to see.**

**

* * *

**

This isn't how it was supposed to be, she thinks as she sits in the quiet hum of the car's interior. Leaning her forehead sideways against the cool window, she lets out a half-laugh, half-sob that ends up sounding more like a choke, and she puts her hand on the door, feeling around for the switch to lower the glass. She needs some air because it feels like she's going to suffocate or have a panic attack or start hyperventilating, and the last thing she needs is for Castle to get impatient and come looking for her and find her gasping in her car.

Outside, the weather is unseasonably warm for late September in the Hamptons. Those who have scored a coveted invitation to the launch party have taken full advantage of the balminess; in the distance, Kate watches them emerge from their SUVs and limos, wearing dresses in bright and eye-catching fall colors and shoulder scarves that dangle behind them and flutter lightly in the evening breeze. She supposes she should count herself among those chosen few, but the card on the passenger seat beside her doesn't feel like a golden ticket; it feels like a consolation prize. This isn't how she was supposed to come to the Hamptons.

Although there are rows and rows of parking spaces that are empty and much closer to the mansion – yes, she decides, it is a mansion, because there are simply no other words to describe it – her hand pauses over the key in the ignition. It seems easier to stay here on the fringe of things, so that maybe she can pretend she's not a part of all this and doesn't have to go in. Her one saving grace is that the property is, at least, one that has been rented for the occasion – it's not the Hamptons mansion that belongs to _him_. She's pretty sure she couldn't handle that right now, having to mingle and socialize with these people she doesn't know or like while around every corner seeing a cozy little nook where she can imagine him and Gina cuddling during the summer they spent apart.

When, after she spends several minutes hesitating over whether or not to move her car closer, her phone starts vibrating on the dashboard, she sighs and flips it on without checking the caller ID. The voice she hears isn't the one she expected; it's much more perky and female. "Kate, when are you getting here?"

She shuts her eyes briefly and closes her fingers over the keys to start the car. "I'm almost there, Gina."

Castle's publisher and ex-ex continues speaking. "Good, because you would not _believe_ what I've had to put up with from Rick tonight. He's still holding out on me about going on a press tour, but it's hard enough to launch Naked Heat as it is – not to mention the Heat Wave movie – without him burrowing in here and refusing to leave New York like he's never done promotion before. When you get here you can slap some sense into him." Since Castle's return to the precinct, Gina seems to have adopted the belief that Kate must care about the success of the Nikki Heat franchise as much as she does; Kate's not sure if it's true naïveté or just the only way that she can reconcile herself with Kate's presence in his life. On the few occasions that they've met since Gina became the girlfriend and Kate just the work partner, she's tried to make her an ally in attempting to sway Castle's decisions – decisions about his writing pace, his choice in cover artists, and now this book tour that's been the topic of discussion for several weeks running.

"I can try," Kate responds, for lack of anything else to say, then quickly adds, "Listen, Gina, I have to put the phone down, but I'll see you in a few minutes." It's partly a ploy to get off the phone but it's also because she really does need both hands free – in trying to navigate the parking lot, she's had to jerk the steering wheel more than once to avoid idiots who have clearly never parallel parked in their lives and left the rear ends of their cars jutting out into the aisles. It doesn't help that the flood of emotions that comes with hearing Gina say Castle's name seems to compromise her judgment and makes it difficult to concentrate on driving.

When she finally does ease into a free space and shut off her engine, she waits until the other guests getting out of their cars have already disappeared inside the mansion's doors before she gets out of the car. Tonight isn't the time or place when she wants to be dealing with questions or exclamations over the real Nikki Heat. She knows they'll be inevitable once she gets inside, but there's no point in giving them a chance to start before they have to, and once she's at the party she hopes to be in and out as quickly as possible and leave as soon as she can.

Gina must have spotted her approaching, because as she walks up the sidewalk she sees the publisher descending down the balcony staircase that wraps around one of the outside columns of the building. She has a cocktail glass in one hand, a perfectly chosen clutch in the other, and she's flanked on both sides by two women who are equally well-coiffed and manicured. Friends or assistants, Kate assumes, and although she knows that on the outside she's a match for any one of them – and that on her home turf, the streets and interrogation rooms of the city, _they_ would never be a match for _her_ – she still wonders if she'll ever have any of their confidence and ease when it comes to situations like this.

"Thank god. You're here," Gina says. The fact that she doesn't come all the way down to Kate's level, but instead pauses on the staircase a few steps above the bottom, doesn't do anything to lessen the feelings of inferiority and condescension that she's fighting. "You might be able to get through to him more than I can. I got so close – I swear I was two sentences away from convincing him to go."

"What happened?" She doesn't really want to know, but it's clearly the polite thing to ask and the question that Gina expects to hear.

"Alexis walked up and asked if he was still coming to her parent-teacher conferences next week. Of course, it's _never_ a fair fight with her, because you know who he's always going to pick." The way she says it, there's no apparent animosity or resentment; if anything, if Kate's as good as reading her like she is most other people, there's a trace of sadness in the statement. But the underlying regret – if it even was there in the first place – flashes only for a split second, and then Gina's shrugging unaffectedly.

"Anyway, I'm running out to pick up Paula, because the car she hired broke down and she's stuck in her hotel. Carla" – this to one of the women standing next to her – "Make sure you call my mother to let her know we're not going to make to dinner tonight. We're running behind schedule as it is, and we can't start any of the unveiling until Paula gets here." As she says it, she lifts a hand and waves to the limo that's just pulled up to indicate that she's coming, and for a moment Kate gets a glimpse of what her life could have been. Parties and a chauffeur in the Hamptons. A career with a much higher pay scale and a much fluffier outlook on life. Dinners with her boyfriend and mother.

Gina finally steps down onto the sidewalk and gives Kate a little wave. "I think Rick's upstairs at the bar if you want to find him," she says as she walks past her and gets into the limo. "Tell him that by the time I get back, he'd damn well better have changed his mind, or heads are going to start rolling."

Kate Beckett has never been one to see red. First of all, she's already seen more than enough of that color to last her a lifetime – starting and ending with her mother's bloody body, crumpled in an alley – and second of all, she's been around Castle long enough now to have picked up his writer penchant for avoiding clichés. So the feelings that squeeze her tightly as she watches Gina drive away are not feelings of anger – it's more a general panic, a fear that is made worse by the fact that it catches her off guard.

_Rick._ Just hearing his first name, spoken so casually by Gina, scares her. She already has everything else – an unscarred past, a career that doesn't consume her life, a living and breathing mother. She can't have him too.

And – speak of the devil, she thinks, as the front door opens and closes and Castle steps out. He blinks at her for a moment, clearly surprised, and then smiles. "Hey. I wasn't sure if you were coming or not."

She raises an eyebrow. The same words she had meant to say to him after the summer, if he had showed up at the precinct in the fall like he was supposed to, if fate hadn't intervened and gotten him arrested for murder instead. "Shouldn't you be inside, regaling your guests and shamelessly promoting yourself?"

He shrugs, steps forward to lean his forearms against the wraparound porch railing, and she comes to stand next to him. "It was getting a little suffocating in there."

Which reminds her. "Speaking of suffocating, it was implied to me that if you don't agree to go on a book tour by the end of the night, violence may result. Your wife is very persistent." The last sentence tumbles out before she can stop it.

She can tell that he catches the slip because he turns and gives her one of those looks, long and deep and expressive, but after a moment he apparently decides not to say anything. She doesn't know how to interpret that – if his silence means that he foresees a future in which Gina really is Mrs. Castle again, or if he doesn't know what his own reaction to that idea is either. But she does know that their past history gives Gina a leg up on her, because at the very least he already knows that Gina has qualities he once (and could again) consider marrying material. And if that happens, she thinks, it would be a relief to beat him to the punch, to start referring to Gina in the present tense even before he does, so that he can't walk into the precinct one day and devastate her with the admission that he needs to focus on his writing and marriage and this time won't be coming back.

He attempts something like a smile, but looks away from her and out over the rows of cars as he responds, "Detective Beckett, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to get me to go on that book tour just to get rid of me."

She doesn't take her eyes off of him. "Maybe I'm just hoping you'll bring us all back some shiny presents."

He smiles, for real this time. "A murder where everything is nice and neat and wrapped up by five o'clock and you get to go home early?"

She rolls her eyes but lets herself laugh. "Clearly you know us too well. But, barring that, some bath salts would be nice too."

"I'm not sure how Ryan and Esposito would feel about that one." He shifts position, turning so that he's leaning back against the railing, and studies her. "Are _you _planning on going inside at all tonight?"

She shrugs, looks away and down at her hands. "I guess I have to at some point, don't I? I'll just stick with you. A muse should never abandon the person who takes inspiration from her, and all that."

"I'm sorry you have to," he responds quietly. "I know how the crowds and fans can be distorting. But you're more than Nikki Heat."

She glances up, surprised. "I know that. Or –" she amends – "at least, I'll know that once I'm back in the city."

His eyes search her face. "If you want you can head back now. I'll make your excuses."

She smiles in spite of herself. "I wouldn't want to incur the wrath of your publisher, who'll probably be getting back any moment now," she says, but he dismisses that with a wave of his hand.

"Oh, believe me, Gina would love an excuse to leave early too. She'd never admit it, but she hates these functions, especially when I'm being a pain in her side; she'd much rather hobnob with actual industry people than the lowly fans and press. She's only here because she has to be, for the books. And clearly, the books are selling fine themselves without an appearance by Nikki Heat, so if that's the only reason you're here then feel free to go."

She stares, and thinks about how they first met, at the party for Storm Fall; about the Heat Wave dedication and the new, more muted dedication for Naked Heat; about how anxious he was to find out what she thought about her advance copy, and how – despite the grief she usually gives him – she really does appreciate the care he's taken with the character inspired by her. "That's not why I'm here."

His furrows his brow, clearly not expecting that remark. "Oh? So why are you here?"

And here it is, she thinks, that one defining characteristic that she's been searching for that separates her and Gina, the one bullet point on which she might actually come out ahead. She steps closer, looks up at him, pauses before she speaks as she turns over the words in her mind – they don't have to be a grand declaration of anything, or an innuendo that implies more than they seem, but they do have to be honest. "I'm here for you."

* * *

_Reviews make me happy, even if you just drop down two words to let me know you enjoyed reading._


End file.
